Polyvalent mpox mRNA vaccines elicit robust immune responses and confer potent protection against vaccinia virus

Affiliations

• State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430207, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
• Guangzhou Henovcom Bioscience Co., Ltd., Guangzhou, Guangdong 510700, China.
• State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430207, China.
• Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China; Key Laboratory of Anhui Province for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China.
• University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430207, China; Hubei Jiangxia Laboratory, Wuhan, Hubei 430200, China. Electronic address: gongr@wh.iov.cn.
• State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Science, Guangzhou 510530, China. Electronic address: zhang_jiancun@gibh.ac.cn.
• State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Center for Biosafety Mega Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430207, China. Electronic address: chuaixia@wh.iov.cn.
• Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China; Key Laboratory of Anhui Province for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China. Electronic address: qiux@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 38787725 DOI:  10.1007/s12072-023-10544-7

Abstract

The 2022 mpox outbreak led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). There is a need to develop more effective and safer mpox virus (MPXV)-specific vaccines in response to the mpox epidemic. The mRNA vaccine is a promising platform to protect against MPXV infection. In this study, we construct two bivalent MPXV mRNA vaccines, designated LBA (B6R-A29L) and LAM (A35R-M1R), and a quadrivalent mRNA vaccine, LBAAM (B6R-A35R-A29L-M1R). The immunogenicity and protective efficacy of these vaccines alone or in combination were evaluated in a lethal mouse model. All mRNA vaccine candidates could elicit potential antigen-specific humoral and cellular immune responses and provide protection against vaccinia virus (VACV) infection. The protective effect of the combination of two bivalent mRNA vaccines and the quadrivalent vaccine was superior to that of the individual bivalent mRNA vaccine. Our study provides valuable insights for the development of more efficient and safer mRNA vaccines against mpox.

Keywords:CP: Immunology; CP: Microbiology; immune responses; mRNA vaccine; mpox virus; polyvalent vaccine; protection.